Amazon to house homeless shelter permanently in new building

Amazon has said it will donated 47,000 square feet of space in a new building as a permanent home for a shelter for women and children.

Amazon has said it will donated 47,000 square feet of space in a new building as a permanent home for a shelter for women and children.

Photo: Seattle Design Review Board

Amazon to house homeless shelter permanently in new building

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Amazon, a company that appears to be consuming Seattle real estate unlike any other, is planning to hand over some of that real estate to those most in need: Homeless women and children.

Mary's Place, a shelter for women, children and families, has housed a family shelter in an old motel purchased by Amazon since last April. The space was offered up by Amazon until work began to build a new building in its place, set to begin this fall.

But now Amazon plans to keep the family shelter around a lot longer.

Mary's Place said Wednesday that Amazon will donate 47,000 square feet of space in the new building as a permanent place for a family shelter.

"To have a permanent downtown Seattle location within Amazon is a game-changer for Mary's Place and the families we serve," said Marty Hartman, executive director of Mary's Place, in a post on Amazon's blog.

While the new building is being constructed, Amazon will help Mary's Place get space in another former hotel nearby, the company said in its post.

Once completed, the new space will be in the shorter (eight-story) of two towers to go up at the site on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Blanchard Street. Aside from a 65-room space for more than 200 homeless women, the center will also include a family resource center to help families get into stable and permanent housing, Mary's Place said in its post.

"Mary's Place does incredible, life-saving work every day for women, children, and families experiencing homelessness in the Seattle community," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO, in the post. "We are lucky to count them as neighbors and thrilled to offer them a permanent home within our downtown Seattle headquarters – Amazon employees and Mary's Place residents will move in together in early 2020."

The building will be a more than 800,000-square-foot addition to Amazon's already sizable headquarters footprint in South Lake Union and the Denny Triangle.

Mary's Place runs six emergency night shelters and several day shelters around Seattle.